Grill apparatus have heretofore been made for automatic two-sided grilling of hamburger patties. In the grill apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,965,807; 3,987,718 and 4,444,094, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, the hamburger patties are conveyed by an endless type conveyor from a loading station at one side of the grill between upper and lower cooking platens and then discharged at a discharge station at the other side of the grill. In Pat. Nos. 3,965,807 and 3,987,718, the patties are conveyed in continuous fashion from the loading station between the cooking platens to the discharge station. In Pat. No. 4,444,094, the conveyor is intermittently operated to advance uncooked patties from a loading station at one end of the grill onto the lower platen. The conveyor is then stopped for a cooking period while the patties are above the lower platen and the upper platen is lowered while the conveyor is stopped to cook the patties on both sides. The upper platen is thereafter raised and the conveyor again operated to advance the cooked patties off the lower platen to a discharge station at the other end of the grill.
Such prior automatic two-sided hamburger grills in which the hamburger patties were loaded at one end of the grill and discharged at the other end of the grill, required operator working space at both ends of the grill and also made it difficult for a single operator to both load uncooked patties at the inlet end of the grill and retrieve cooked hamburger patties at the discharge end.